The present disclosure includes a hand-held device and a method for reducing the size of food items. More particularly, the disclosure relates to a hand-held device having a slicing compartment formed by a portion of a casing and a rotating slicing drum, which is preferably removable and reversible with removable blades.
Devices that reduce the size of food include mechanisms for grating, slicing and chopping for items such as cheese, garlic, ginger, pepper, onions and the like by using blades and graters. Such items are useful in simplifying food preparation. However, such items are often inconvenient as they require the food item to be of a particular size to be engaged in the slicing or grating mechanism.
The terms “size reducing mechanism” as used in this disclosure generally refer to slicing and grating devices, and the term “size reducing member” refers to slicing items such as blades, graters and cutting edges.
Food slicing and grating items are known in the art. U.S. Design Pat. D276,202 shows an ornamental design for a slicer/grater. It has a rotating handle attached to a cylindrical drum that slices or grates items in the compartment. The compartment does not have a curved wall in such a way that the curves of the drum and the curved wall of the compartment are tangential.
U.S. Design Pat. D493,074 shows an ornamental design for a grater. It has a rotating handle attached to a cylindrical drum that grates items in the grating case. The case does not have a curved wall in such a way that the curves of the drum and the curved wall of the case are tangential. It has a pressure arm pivotally incorporated into the handle.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,660,341 discloses a rotary grater. It has a handle attached to a rotating cylindrical drum that grates items in the compartment. The compartment has a curved wall wherein the lateral walls curve toward each other. It has a pressure arm as part of the handle with a pressure plate that fits between the curved walls.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,244,529 discloses a garlic grater with a perforated rotating drum connected to a handle that fits in a cavity. It has a tapered lip and a door that can be pivotally mounted on the casing.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,766,972 discloses a rotary grater with a handle attached to a rotating cylindrical drum that grates items in the grating compartment. It has a pressure arm pivotally attached to the handle with a curved pressure plate to force the items into the grating drum.
U.S. Publication 2004/0079820 discloses a rotary grater with a handle attached to a rotating cylindrical drum that grates items in the grating compartment. It has a pressure arm pivotally attached to the handle with a curved pressure plate that pivots to different positions to hold various items in the drum.
The prior art shows a food slicer with a slicing compartment, which is formed by a rotating slicing drum and a wall of a case. Items known in the prior art do not have an option of changing the size reducing mechanism, such as a rotating cylinder or drum, and/or the blades, slicers, graters and cutting edges, and such devices further do not provide convenient storage for different blades or graters when they are not in use. The prior art does not disclose a structure for readily removing the rotating cylinder and the cutting blades. Thus, it is desirable to produce a device with improvements over the prior art that will be apparent in the detailed description of the disclosure.